Tony Hawk: Downhill Jam

[Hellfire]

look at the state of that tree in there?i swear the ds graphics are better

 

Lying is a sin.

[myster0n]

New gameplay video.

The game is starting to look fun to me. I won't buy it without testing, but it looks like a candidate for a place in my shelf. Which would make it the first Tony Hawk game to be on my shelf.

[Nintendork]

The game is starting to look fun to me. I won't buy it without testing, but it looks like a candidate for a place in my shelf. Which would make it the first Tony Hawk game to be on my shelf.

 

God just get this:

 

So much better than anything that followed (I played 3/4 and one of the gimmick jackass spin-offs)

 

I'll admit 'Project 8' looks like it's going back to the original formula thus far.

[myster0n]

God just get this:

 

So much better than anything that followed (I played 3/4 and one of the gimmick jackass spin-offs)

 

I'll admit 'Project 8' looks like it's going back to the original formula thus far.

First of all : thank you for calling me God. I'm not quite that powerful yet, but I'm working on it.

 

I haven't followed the series at all, but I presume that that game is a (to be blunt) "do tricks at the skatepark for massive dam.. I mean : points" genre. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That's just not the sort of game that I like. It doesn't give me personally a sense of achievement. Maybe I'm too old for that.

 

So thanks for the tip, but no thanks.

[Hellfire]

For the uninitiated, Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam is unlike any Tony Hawk game before it. DJ is actually centered around longboard skateboarding. Any longboarder will tell you that longboards aren’t exactly suited for the tricks, combos, and manuals that the Tony Hawk series is known for. Longboarding is the faster, more stable cousin to skateboarding. As such, DJ focuses on downhill racing (or bombing hills in longboard speak). In principle, this makes DJ feel a lot closer to a game like SSX, where tricks serve as a means to get down the hill faster. What makes DJ stand out, as with most Wii games, is control.

 

Control, control, control. At e3 Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam had the smallest line at the Wii booth. The people manning the kiosk literally grabbed me to play it, and I obliged… falling off more cliffs and crashing into more things than Sonic in any recent 3d outing. It certainly looked interesting, but control was frustratingly difficult. DJ uses the wiimote in “NES mode,†with the controller held with both hands parallel to the body. In order to move your skater, you tilt the controller left and right (like a skateboarder would lean on a board). At e3, this system was extremely sensitive, causing the aforementioned Sonic-like frustration.

 

Fast forward (or rewind, depending on your viewpoint) to Oct. 4th, 2006. I sit down in front of Downhill Jam and begin a race, expecting equally difficult controls. Instead, what I get is butter. Absolutely smooth, intuitive, amazing controls. Turning with the wiimote feels completely and utterly natural, no calibration or sensitivity changes needed. This is the most intuitive control scheme I’ve played on the Wii since Wii sports… it’s that good. So for casual gamers, this game is easy to jump into and be successful at. For “core gamers†the controls have tons of little intricacies to master.

 

The intricacies of controlling DJ feed off of DJ’s Tony Hawk moniker. The 2 button is held to crouch for more speed, releasing it ollies (i.e. jumps). When you’re in the air, the 1 button is used as an all-purpose trick button. Press 1 to grind on anything grindable. Press 1 while grinding to change up your stance and combo grind. Press 1 in the air in conjunction with the d-pad to do a variety of flips and grabs. Press 1 close to a wall or sign to do a stickerslap, possibly uncovering shortcuts and shaving seconds off of times. It may sound one-dimensional, but the system is actually quite liberating.

 

Early in development, the developers were considering going with an SSX-like system where tricks were a bit more complicated. I’m glad they didn’t. The one button trick system makes it so that racing is what is front and center, tricks are a means to speed. On the right side of the screen is a boost bar, that fills up as you trick your way down the course. It can “hold†4 boosts, and when it’s filled completely you can do ubertricks in the air. Boosting is handled by flicking the controller outward, and it feels really natural and fantastic to pull off.

 

Another longboarding move that makes its way into DJ is sliding. In real longboarding, sliding is when you get low on the board, stick out your hand and use it to slide sharply into a corner. In DJ sliding is used as a powerslide, but built into it is a risk/reward system that makes it stand out as one of the coolest control additions to the game. See, when you go into a slide a little red circle appears next to your boarder. If you release the slide button (I think it was the b trigger, but I may be wrong) too early or too late… you just slowed down for no reason. But release your slide at the exact right moment (when the circle turns green) and you’re rewarded with a little boost. It’s a really small detail, but it FEELS so right… it stands out in my mind.

 

Speed wobbles also come into play when you hit another player. When you hit another skater (with the dpad) they’ll careen slightly out of control because their board will wobble a bit. Speed wobbles suck in real life (they’re pretty damn scary actually) and in the game theyre equally sucky… taking you off track. Combat does build up the boost bar though, so violent people get rewarded for alienating their friends.

 

So DJ impresses with solid controls, but it also impresses with its level of polish. DJ looks leagues above both COD3 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The game’s frame rate is about as smooth as its controls, and tracks are impressively large and varied. Tracks have a plethora of alternative routes, grinds, and shortcuts for the player to take… and every track I played was fantastic. Course and characters are all a bit deformed, and burst with color. Finally, a Wii game that looks like it’s improving on GCN graphics.

 

The art style shines as well. Where SSX is all about ice cool colors and slickness, DJ has a warmer, laid back art style about it. Characters aren’t you typical Tony Hawk cast, with everything from a “goth†chick with pink hair to a large Scandinavian sounding guy who speaks like 50 cent. Another little extra is the use of the wiimote speaker for ambient effects. These sounds would have not gotten much attention through normal TV speakers, but bringing them closer to you adds a bit to the experience. As an added bonus, one of the games sponsor is Sector 9, whose decks will be unlockable in the game. The music was also pretty damn good as well, with known Nintendo fan Lupe Fiasco’s single “Kick Push†being played in the menus.

 

Single player consists of 108 events spanning from straight up racing to score attacks. Bronze, Silver, and Gold medals are earned for doing well in the events. As you make your way through the game, there are tons of new characters, concept art, and new boards to unlock. That last one will be most important, because much like recent entries in the Mario Kart series, the board is what controls all your stats, not the boarder. Activision was also highlighting the multiplayer modes of the game, which are equally (if not more) fun than the single player mode. Up to 4 people can play against each other in everything from standard race and trick events to odder entries like Slalom (where you’ve got to jump through rings to gain time and stay in the race), to Steal the Head mode (where everyone except the leader loses their head and must regain the lead to get… wait for it… a head). They were all a blast.

 

So if you haven’t figured it out yet, Downhill Jam is a must buy launch title for me. The second I stopped playing the game, I wanted to play it again… and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Regardless of your previous thoughts about the Tony Hawks series, DJ deserves a very serious look in your launch plans. It’s a game that shows of everything the Wii is about. FUN. Controls are easy enough for Grandma to get her grind on, and deep enough to be rewarding for gamers like you and I. The graphics look appropriately “next generation,†and the race events seem like they’d take a decent amount of time to conquer. For a longboard enthusiast like myself, the game is great at capturing the thrill of bombing a hill… and for a gaming enthusiast like myself, the game is great at just about everything. DJ deserves to be in your Wii come launch day, it’s that simple.

From 4color rebellion

[DiemetriX]

great.. just great.. now i need to spend more money. Didn't know Toys for bob had it in them. Sound like a great mutiplayer game.

[Dante]

IGN's hands-on.

 

As we near the launch of Wii next month, gamers everywhere are starting to put down cold hard cash on their favorite titles to experience on day one. Preorders on software are already rolling in to retailers, and while titles such as Excite Truck and Zelda may be obvious choices, there are a ton of great third party games hitting the Wii right off the bat, too. Among those games sits Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, a title we've been covering for six months. More recently, we were invited to play though a good chunk of Downhill Jam at Activision's latest press showing, and though there are no new modes to rave about or huge secrets to unveil, the game is still good fun and we're feeling more comfortable with the control scheme as we put more time on the board.

 

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is a spin-off of the main franchise that has been custom-created for the Nintendo Wii. Developed by Toys for Bob, the game focuses on an aspect of Hawk that players may have forgotten about over the years; downhill racing. In the original Hawk game for PlayStation and Nintendo 64, a few downhill levels were included along with the traditional free-roaming areas to change up the basic Hawk gameplay. While they had the same missions as the wide open zones, the downhill levels focused more on hitting huge trick lines and pulling off long grinds to explore the entire area. The levels had people tricking over the gaps of a huge canyon, or grinding down escalators in the original Mall level. For Downhill Jam, the team focused on taking that style of gameplay to the next level, adding in full race modes, trick attacks, and widely open-ended downhill tracks to play around in.

 

In the latest playthrough, we had a chance to go head-to-head in four-player mode, selecting our favorite fictional skaters (that seem to take a ton of creative inspiration from games like SSX and Guitar Hero) and compete in a ton of different modes. When playing, we were allowed to set up our own levels and modes if we preferred, or instead could set the game to a random selection, giving us one of many different modes to compete in. While the basic race and trick modes were very solid, there was a ton of heated competition behind the slalom mode, which gives each player a race timer and forces them to skate through rings to add more time to their bar. Since the levels are designed with branching paths (some easier than others, of course), we were rewarded for seeking the hardest lines possible, attempting to use power lines and the tops of storefronts in the San Francisco level, or ride high above the mountain tops in Machu Pichu to hit the most amount of gates possible.

 

In a new mode called "Steal the Head," players start as headless skaters, and must compete for first place to earn a gigantic head on their shoulders as a token of their awesomeness. To steal the head from the first place player, you had to either pass them up, or attack the leader to knock their noggin off. To keep things even, the player with the head has the boost ability disabled, so they'll have to innovate with huge trick lines or use dangerous skating to avoid the chasing competitors. Since each of the players were working to chase down one specific goal, this mode had a bit more player interaction than something like slalom or trick attack, which had each racer basically running their own lines or simply competing for the overall score at the end of the run.

 

Aside from the new multiplayer mode, we had a chance to get a few interesting tidbits about the game. For starters, skate fans will be happy to hear that along with the expected brands of boards (such as Tony Hawk's own Birdhouse brand), downhill skating brands such as Sector 9 will also be making an appearance, giving the game a bit more legitimacy as a downhill skating game, rather than just a regular Hawk title with a downhill theme tacked on. In addition, the new flipping system was fully integrated into the build, so we had a chance to try adding flips and spins together with kick/grab tricks. Pulling off a flip works just like the spins, having players tilt the controller forward or backwards in order to send the player in a head-over-heels roll. When combining a spin with a flip, you'll simply tilt the entire controller at an angle on both the X and Y axis simultaneously. If, for example, you wanted to flip forward and spin clockwise at the same time, you'd just tilt the controller away from you and lift up with your left hand. It's simple, and it works.

 

As a general note about gameplay, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam may find its way in gamers' homes simply because of the laid back feel you can have with the game. Rather than standing in front of a sensor bar and coordinating nunchuk controls with the Wii-mote pointer, Hawk allowed us to sit back in a comfortable chair, hold the controller NES style (which feels great, by the way), and just have a blast with a few fellow reporters. The gameplay was easy enough to pass the controller around, and it was totally common to have around eight players constantly swapping in and out. It's amazing how using simple controls and a tiny wireless gamepad got us in the sharing mood, but it really does work. Hardcore gamers may be looking for games like Zelda and Metroid to dominate their time, but games like Excite Truck, Trauma Center, and Downhill Jam are great ways to fill in the more casual gaps no matter what demographic you may fit into.

[James McGeachie]

Hot damn, the game actually looks great in that most recent gameplay video. It's funny how much difference a few months polishing and good video footage make compared to those first screenshots of the game that had people thinking "N64 level". With the draw distance and incredibly smooth framerate, this is up there with the better looking Wii games probably.

 

I might actually consider buying this on launch.

[Teppo Holmqvist]

More positive impressions at PlanetGamecube.

 

I was completely surprised by how much fun I had with Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam on Wii at Activision last week. I played four-player for at least an hour, and after everyone else moved on or went home, I spent fifteen minutes or so in single player and only stopped because I was running out of time.

 

The first thing that anyone needs to know is that this is not a standard Tony Hawk game. So whether you love Tony Hawk games, you can't stand them, or you just feel helpless when you try to compete, step back and approach this racer like you've never heard of Tony Hawk before.

 

Downhill Jam is a four-player racing title in which you hold the Wii remote sideways, rocking it back and forth to steer your character to mimic how a skater balances on his board. You hold the 2 button throughout most of the race to crouch and pick up speed, releasing it to ollie and catch air. You press the 1 button to grind on countless lines on the way to the finish. While grinding, a balance meter appears above your character's head and you must tilt the remote to keep your mark in the center so you don't fall off the line. To perform tricks you use combinations of both buttons and the cross pad, usually when catching air. Performing tricks fills a meter to give you speed boosts that are activated by either shaking the controller or hitting the B trigger. And when you're near opponents you can slap or kick them off their boards with the cross pad.

 

Like my experience with Excite Truck at E3, I find that using the remote to steer and balance just comes naturally. There was a slight tendency to over steer when I first started out, but after I got a feel for it, I had no trouble zipping back and forth across the course to reach goals or avoid being hit by traffic. With more focus on racing, the trick system has been simplified a little, but there is still a wide range of tricks that you can do and trick-based game modes.

 

Speaking of game modes, there are about five different modes available in the multiplayer game, which kept it from getting stale even though only three areas were unlocked in the build we played. There is a standard race mode in which the first person to the bottom wins and a strange companion mode called Elimirace that crowns the last person as the winner.

 

In trick mode, you'll try to gain as many trick points as possible before reaching the bottom. However, it does seem like crossing the finish line first puts you at a disadvantage since other players can see your final score and linger to do more tricks before they end the race.

 

Slalom can be a lot of fun. In this mode there are hoops, called gates, strung throughout the course and a timer ticking down. Going through the hoops will increase your time by a few seconds; run out of time and you'll be disqualified. Whoever passes through the most gates and makes it to the bottom wins.

 

The most competitive (and most bizarre) mode is called Steal the Head. It doesn't matter who gets to the bottom first, but similar to king of the hill modes in shooters, the person who keeps the head longest throughout the race wins. What is the head you ask? Well, it's your character's head, actually. You see, in this mode, when your characters jump off the starting line, all of their heads fall off except for the player in the lead. The rest of you are controlling headless skaters, trying to catch up to him, and "steal the head". So you're trying to get ahead to get a head. Get it? Then you want to hang on to the head as long as possible so that even if the others pass you at the end, you'll still win because you've had the head longer than anyone else.

 

In single player there are some additional goals available for courses, including destroying specific objects or knocking over pedestrians. The trick mode is a little more robust in single player too, with special trick rings that put you into slow-motion, allowing you to get more tricks while in the air.

 

The course designs I've seen are all pretty complex with multiple paths to take and lines to grind on. There are some particularly fun lines to grind in the Hong Kong level which have you popping strings of lanterns and sliding from one fishing boat to the next in the harbor. The courses are set up so that you can race on short sections of a slope or take the whole thing from top to bottom, and as you progress through the game the slopes tend to grow longer. On some sections of the courses, a red arrow will show up in the distance, pointing out a shortcut. Usually it takes a bit more skill to access shortcuts or to get through them without falling somewhere along the way, but they can help you shave off a lot of time if you don't mess up.

 

Graphically, Downhill Jam is the most impressive of Activision's line up. There is a lot of detail throughout the game, and characters look smooth and polished. The style is more fantasy based, and at this point no real life skaters have been revealed besides Tony Hawk. Instead there's an assortment of more cartoon style characters like a goth chick and a guy with dreadlocks.

 

Overall, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam has really hooked me, especially with its multiplayer modes. While it may not satisfy fans craving a more traditional Tony Hawk game, it's definitely worth checking out no matter how much experience you've had with the series. I'll be picking it up at the Wii launch for sure.

 

SOURCE

[Nintendork]

Can't believe 4CR is giving this props.

They are notorious fanboys. I think they gave props to Geist as well.

 

Some of the staff were really outraged after that podcast.

[Owen]

AND this is why i'm buying the game! I know it's going to be fun!

[solitanze]

Can you make your fellow opponents die by bashing them to death during the race? The computerised opponents that is, not physical human players that are playing the game in the same room as you.

[Nintendork]

Yes, the 1 button doubles as a stab in the face button when you are in game.

 

Do you really think Activision would allow violence in Tony Hawks? Yeah.. lets slap a big 15+ rating on it so nobody will buy it.

 

Nice.

[Wolf]

Goddammit, not another great-sounding game!

[Charlie]

Wow, this sounds amazing, it didn't look too good at E3 (both ways, playing and graphics-wise) but it should be a solid launch title.

[raven_blade2006]

Im impressed by the way Wii games are showing significant improvements since their E3 appearances. Keep it up. Far Cry you're next...

[monkeyDluffy]

http://www.game.co.uk/ViewProduct.aspx?cat=11467&mid=329579

 

interesting thing on the box art, notice the little blue circle in the top left corner! probably lies though

[Dr Kong]

The music was also pretty damn good as well, with known Nintendo fan Lupe Fiasco’s single “Kick Push†being played in the menus.

 

Hell yes.

[Nintendork]

Lupe Fiasco didn't even skate, but it was a cool song.

SB Dunks indeed are the choice of shoe.

[AshMat]

Though i don't any more, the best shoes i ever skated in were my eS accelerates

[pedrocasilva]

Can't believe 4CR is giving this props.

They are notorious fanboys. I think they gave props to Geist as well.

 

Some of the staff were really outraged after that podcast.

Geist was flawed as a FPS but still very good as a adventure game, and although buggy it was fun. I'm interested in newer games from the same developers.

 

Just my opinion though.

[AshMat]

God just get this:

 

So much better than anything that followed (I played 3/4 and one of the gimmick jackass spin-offs)

 

I'll admit 'Project 8' looks like it's going back to the original formula thus far.

 

Back when Adio made decks :/

[fukudasolokomalakikenanze]

This game withs its positive impressions and obvious improvements in the game as a whole makes it an UPHILL JAM all the way to the bank if they continue improving this game.

[pedrocasilva]

Gameplay comparison:

 

-> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3510078793578405605&pr=goog-sl

[Shoe]

Downhill Jam is a joke